Local Fall Color
I can feel hints of autumn seeping through the last days of summer. We will have more warm weather, but there is a chill in the morning air, and August took a big bite out our long sunlit days.If you are an immigrant from the northeastern hardwood forests, you will understandably scoff at the notion of fall color in California. In all but a few places, our fall foliage is a timid version of eastern forest fireworks. It is a subtle beauty, but beauty nonetheless.Surely, our local wineries have the best fall color in the area. But if you prefer to explore the back roads and the trails, look for sycamore, big leaf maple, white alder, and Fremont cottonwood. These trees prefer a home along streams, often interspersed among conifers and other evergreens. So, we rarely see them in pure stands. Instead, they scatter flashes of yellow here and there amidst the still-green creekside forests.The sycamore trees in Coe Park's Hunting Hollow seem to have a knack for autumn elegance. Perhaps it is the wisps of lichen dangling from the branches or the way streaks of sunshine backlight the leaves against a shaded background. They seem to have a special glow. Just steps into the hollow, look for one trailside monarch that steals the show. As if thumbing its nose at the law of gravity, a massive trunk rises six feet before making a ninety degree turn from vertical to horizontal. What keeps this tubby trunk from falling? It brings to mind an Olympic gymnast holding the iron cross on the rings—continuously. The strain must be excruciating.I have three favorite spots along the Coyote Creek bike path between Morgan Hill and San Jose where I can step into the riparian forest and forget that Highway 101 is just steps away. Sycamores and cottonwoods light up the trail near the bridge just a short walk from the trail's bottom end in northwest Morgan Hill. A rarely visited spot is at the end of Burnett Avenue beyond Sobrato High School. Farther north, park in the lot just beyond Metcalf Road and walk back toward Coyote Ranch. From each of these spots, you can step into a dome of color.Above the creeks and cascades at Uvas Canyon County Park, the autumn color of bigleaf maples and sycamores light up an otherwise dark and shaded forest. Even along the road to the park, maples and white alders decorate Uvas Creek in a way that invariably pulls me to the side of the road and out of the car.Like the road to Uvas Canyon County Park, Hecker Pass Highway climbs the same Santa Cruz Mountains through stands of bigleaf maple that make simply getting to Mount Madonna County Park a great fall experience. Once you reach the park, look for more color on the Blackhawk Trail.Let your New England refugee friends brag about the fall colors they left behind. Winter is next, and they never brag about that.
Sauv Blanc, Merlot and Chardonnay
We are so lucky to live in an area with more than 20 premium wineries - many are next door to each other and most within five miles of the other. The wines of Gilroy, Morgan Hill, San Martin and Hollister are not only winning awards, their tasting rooms are friendly and unpretentious.
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MH chef is the most ‘Cutthroat’ of them all
Morgan Hill resident Steve Caposio’s run toward stardom is solidly under way, as the construction contractor-by-day appeared on—and won—the Dec. 13 episode of The Food Network’s nationally broadcast “Cutthroat Kitchen” reality television series.Caposio, always a showman, told more than 100 of his closest friends and family, gathered at his home for a viewing party of the Sunday evening broadcast, that the producers contacted him earlier this month and asked him to return to the show’s “Tournament of Champions.” Caposio expects to return to Food Network studios in February 2016 for production of that program.But Caposio isn’t about to forget where he came from. He also announced after the conclusion of the Dec. 13 broadcast that he wanted to donate his winnings from “Cutthroat Kitchen” to his sister-in-law Sally Brown, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. He handed Brown and her husband Jimmy a check for about $7,000 at his home Sunday night.“These two are very close to me, so if it’s the least I can do,” Caposio told the crowd in his living room, with his arms around the Brown couple and their 13-year-old son Jimmy.Sally Brown, who came down from Novato for the viewing party, said she had no idea Caposio was going to make such a gesture. She said she was “overwhelmed” with emotions. Sally Brown is the sister of Caposio’s wife Shana.Caposio, the 49-year-old owner of several businesses—including Exterior Construction, Pac-Net Auto Sales and a security firm called Pledge Protection—has been cooking almost his whole life, beginning under the tutelage of his mother Etta Caposio. He also has a personality possessed by an endless magnetic energy that fills the corners of every room he occupies and makes strangers feel immediately welcome.This combination of charisma and love of—not to mention talent for—cooking inspired Caposio, on the advice of friends and family, to start trying to enter show business a few years ago. His appearance on “Cutthroat Kitchen”—a Food Network favorite hosted by Alton Brown that is now in its 12th season—was his most high-profile appearance yet.“He’s a character,” said Mattie Scariot of 152 West Productions. Scariot has been managing Caposio and his show-biz ventures, which include an indie film about poker players with Hollister director John Nava that is currently in the editing room. “He just keeps talking. He cooks amazingly well, and he has always wanted to do television.”Caposio entered the Dec. 13 party at his home with a grand entrance to Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me” piped at full volume, as he ran onto the upstairs landing in front of scores of guests who began assembling an hour earlier. He strutted down the stairs to a sustained applause, hugging, kissing and shaking hands with every guest he passed—the whole time casting a huge, playful smile that revealed his own amusement with making such a dramatic, clichéd arrival.Each episode of “Cutthroat Kitchen” pits four chefs against each other in a winner-takes-all competition in which contestants can sabotage while trying to out-cook each other. In the Dec. 13 episode, titled “We Don’t Need Another Gyro,” the contestants were tasked in each round with cooking a crabcake benedict, a gyro and a rhubarb pie. Each contestant starts with $25,000, and in each round gets to bid on a sabotage effort to staunch their competitors.For example, in the last round Caposio, going by the stage name “Chef Capo,” sabotaged competitor “Chef Carla”—who frequently referred to Caposio as “old man” or “grandpa” throughout the show—by forcing her to cook a rhubarb pie on an awkward pan shaped like the symbol for the number pi.During the party at Caposio’s home, guests got a chance to sample the gyro recipe that he produced on the show.In his living room, Caposio treated his Morgan Hill audience to his own live commentary of the broadcast, animated by wild hand gestures, a wide range of facial expressions and witty banter.“I was sweatin’ after the second round,” Caposio said, describing how nervous he was during production.After three rounds, Judge Simon Majumdar declared Caposio the last man standing, causing the crowd in the Morgan Hill living room to erupt in applause.“I’m very proud of my son,” said Etta Coposio, Steve’s mother and an accomplished cook herself who has published a book and used to own an Italian restaurant in Cupertino. “He was a good student. He was always at my hip in the kitchen. I believe in having a sense of humor, even when you’re cooking—it’s all going to come out alright.”Steve Caposio’s continued push into show business doesn’t end with his invitation to return to “Cutthroat Kitchen” for filming in February. He is also the co-star in the upcoming indie film “The Biggest Game In Town,” a “people movie with poker in it” written and directed by Nava. 152 West is working with Nava on cinematography, editing and other production tasks.Scariot and her husband Nils Myers introduced Nava to Caposio when he was looking for the right actor to play the role of “Diamond Dave.”“I had a part that’s a terrible poker player and a worse cook, but he has great charisma,” Nava laughed.Nava went to Caposio’s house to meet him, and within 30 minutes he knew not only that he was the perfect co-star; he also wrote more scenes for Caposio based on the budding actor’s strengths.“I went home and expanded his character,” said Nava, who added that everyone on the film’s set was impressed with Caposio’s acting chops. “He’s the comic relief. He’s a natural, and he’s gifted. He’s willing to take risks. I’ve been around actors a lot, and Steve is one of a kind.”Keeping his feet on the ground, Caposio—a father of two grown sons and an 11-year-old daughter—knows how blessed he is.“Every one of these people, I’ve been cooking for them forever,” Caposio said Sunday night, referring to the crowd at his home. “I come from an Italian family, and every event we do revolves around food. It brings the family together. In the end, that’s all you’ve got left—family and friends.”
